Is your company’s network ready for the future?

Back in 2005 when you purchased your brand new network, you probably didn’t think you’d have to get a new one in 2015. Well, 2016 is here and the majority of businesses are most likely looking for an upgrade.

Technology simply moves too fast for companies to keep up with it. One minute they’re spending a large portion of their budget to upgrade, the next minute it’s a decade later and what’s important now wasn’t important then.

Pew Research gathered some experts from around the industry to come up with some ideas about where the future of Internet was headed. Theses on the future of Internet were created and it’s important to take a look so you know what to expect from your legacy network in 2025.

Technology trends are swift – make sure your company is prepared.

The consensus

Out of this study came four generally agreed upon facts that experts believe will come true over the next 10 years. By beginning preparation within your network and supplementary technology, your business won’t be scrambling for answers as these theses eventually come true:

The Internet of Things, or (very) simply put, the increased connectivity of wearables and other technology, will become embedded in the culture.

Augmented reality will enhance daily routines in various shapes and forms.

Data mining will proliferate.

Business models of the 20th century will be rehashed, reworked and wholly thought over.

It’s the last bullet point that sticks out. The way your business does things, especially internal communication, will be completely transformed in the next 10 years. If you don’t have an idea already of how this will impact your company’s operations, consider yourself behind the curve.

Get out in front of the pack

One consensus from this study is that the Internet will become intertwined with daily routines. For a business, this is huge news. If you bought your network just 5 years ago, it’s most likely already giving you trouble. Increased connectivity, video sharing and telecommuting all put a strain on the WAN. So, what will happen when your legacy network is your single most important tool – if it isn’t already?

Implementing change now can help you in the long-run. Begin by focusing on the action that gives your network the most trouble as it tries to keep consistent uptime. Video sharing requires large amounts of bandwidth to move through the network, and employees don’t like to wait on it. The hyper-fast speeds they get while downloading and watching video at their home translates to a mindset they have at work – if it doesn’t load immediately, they won’t watch it.

Avoid spending resources updating the network by keeping uptime consistent with an ECDN.

This can be a challenge as you try to restructure your internal communication in the light of industry trends. By incorporating video into practices like onboarding and executive news conferences, you’re placing more strain on your network. On the other hand, by ignoring it you’re not letting your employees reach their full productivity potential, and you’re ultimately staving off the inevitable. Change is happening rapidly in the office space, and if you can’t account for video file sharing you will have serious problems in a few years as the Internet of Things becomes necessary to operate.

A software defined enterprise content delivery network is a type of network solution that allows companies to reroute video files through the SD ECDN to take the pressure off of the network. This lets companies to keep their legacy networks so they don’t have to spend innumerable amounts of money each year upgrading to meet the needs of their employees. Simply put, it would take a network upgrade every year or so to keep in line with the changes in technology – as well as expanding bandwidth, which is something a lot of organizations don’t have the financial capacity to do.

Implementing an SD ECDN in your network is a quick and easy solution to meet the needs of your workers in today’s corporate atmosphere. Video is growing quickly, and will become a vital part of internal communication. Onboarding is becoming streamlined through video to allow for quick and easy access to company created content that keeps corporate goals in unison. Without an SD ECDN handling file delivery, though, the videos may buffer and lag, resulting in a less-than-acceptable viewing for employees. Some may not even watch it at all.

Companies can reduce the money they spend on renting conference rooms by broadcasting videos internally – only if the proper infrastructure is in place, though. If your network can’t handle it, you subject your employees to an age-old practice of cramming everyone in the conference room to tell them something that they could’ve watched at their desk.

Companies can improve internal communications with video by implementing a SD ECDN.

As technology grows, so will your company. SD ECDNs are scalable and can be fine tuned to account for any changes in industry practices and company operations. In contrast, networks do not scale unless you buy new hardware. By shifting some of the pressure from your network to software-defined technology, you’re giving it a boost in ability so that it’s able to handle more menial tasks that the Internet provides, without compromising on uptime.

Being ready for future technology begins by preparing for the current trend. Video is becoming a part of the office routine, and has a great impact on employee engagement through internal communications. If your legacy network can’t handle what technology is throwing it’s way now, it certainly won’t be able to handle what’s to come.